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<p>This has been a <strong>long</strong> time coming. Just over a
year since we announced
the <a href="https://www.bugzilla.org/about/zarroboogs">new
nonprofit to manage Bugzilla</a>, we finally have a
set of releases to show for it. Our only excuse is that the lead
developer is
a volunteer, has been working almost (but not quite) alone on
it, and still has
to juggle his normal paying job. A little more about what can be
done about that
below. First let’s get to the big news!</p>
<h2 id="the-releases"><strong>The Releases</strong></h2>
<p>Here’s what we’re releasing today:</p>
<p><strong>4.4.14</strong> – The 4.4 branch has been on life
support for a
<strong>LONG</strong> time (it was initially released in <strong>2013!!!</strong>).
It supports outdated
OSes that are hard to find or install, let alone test for these
days, and we’ve
been itching to drop it for a long time. But our support policy
says that we
have to support it for 4 months after the following two major
releases. The
next major release after 4.4 was 5.0, and there have been no
major releases
after that until today. <strong>That four month countdown to
End-of-Life starts
NOW.</strong> This will be the final release of the 4.4 branch
(barring any additional
security issues being found in the next 4 months).</p>
<p><strong>5.0.4.1</strong> – Why 5.0.4.1 when there’s a 5.0.6
release? Well, if you paid
attention to the change logs, 5.0.5 and 5.0.6 contained a
massive schema
change, as well as reformatting almost all of the Perl code in
the source, both
of which are a violation of our support policy for a stable
branch (a
new-to-the-process release manager pushed the release out not
realizing that,
and by the time we caught it, it was too late). A lot of people
noticed this
and never upgraded to 5.0.5 or 5.0.6, since they didn’t contain
any security
fixes. 5.0.4.1 will give those people additional fixes for
5.0.4 without
forcing them to pick up those schema and code reformatting
changes. Additional
updates to the 5.0 branch from now on will continue from 5.0.4.2
and onward.</p>
<p><strong>5.2</strong> – This is our new stable release, and
starts the 4 month
countdown for discontinuing the 4.4 branch. 5.2 is forked from
the 5.0 branch
after 5.0.6, and will contain those schema and code formatting
changes from
5.0.5 and 5.0.6 in it. So if you <em><strong>did</strong></em>
upgrade to 5.0.6, 5.2 will be
equivalent to a point upgrade for you. Those schema changes
should have caused
a major release to happen anyway, so this is just fixing the
numbering problem
with that release (i.e. 5.0.5 should have been called 5.2 to
begin with). Note
that <strong>if you are using the 5.1.x development releases,
those did NOT feed into
this</strong>, and 5.2 would actually be a downgrade for you.</p>
<p><strong>5.3.3</strong> – In order to avoid confusion with 5.2
above, the 5.1 branch has been
retroactively renumbered to 5.3. It is also basically dead, as
we’ve put all of our resources
into finishing off the Harmony release (see 5.9.1 below). We’re
going to
encourage people on 5.1.x/5.3.x to move to Harmony, but you’ll
want to be mindful of
the release blockers first before you make the jump. There are
some features in
5.1.x/5.3.x that were implemented differently in Harmony, and
the code to migrate the
related data may or may not work yet (if the feature in question
is listed on
the release blockers and you use it, you’ll want to wait for
now). Even though
this branch is dead, we’re put out this release with the current
batch of
security fixes so you aren’t left high and dry before Harmony is
ready for you.</p>
<p><strong>5.9.1</strong> – This is the first official release
off the Harmony branch, and is classified as a <strong>developer
preview
release</strong>, not for production use. This is what will
eventually be Bugzilla
6. The code is mostly good enough to use right now, but there
are still
showstoppers to be able to fully release it as a production
release. There are
also a few gotchas when upgrading from older versions of
Bugzilla. If you’re
interested in helping make Bugzilla 6 happen, that list of
showstoppers is
<a
href="https://github.com/bugzilla/harmony/blob/main/RELEASE_BLOCKERS.md">here</a>.
We are
hoping to have Bugzilla 6 in release candidate stage (or at
least in beta)
within the next few months.</p>
<h2 id="download">Download</h2>
<p>Bugzilla is available at:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.bugzilla.org/download/"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.bugzilla.org/download/</a></p>
<h2 id="release-notes--changes">Release Notes & Changes</h2>
<p>Before installing or upgrading, you should read the Release
Notes for
this version of Bugzilla:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.bugzilla.org/releases/4.4.14">4.4.14
Release Notes</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.bugzilla.org/releases/5.0.4.1">5.0.4.1
Release Notes</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.bugzilla.org/releases/5.2">5.2 Release
Notes</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.bugzilla.org/releases/5.4">5.3.3
Release Info</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.bugzilla.org/releases/6.0">5.9.1
Release Info</a></li>
</ul>
<p>It is VERY IMPORTANT to read the Release Notes if you are
upgrading from one major version to another (like 4.4.x to
5.0.x).</p>
<p>You can also get a link to see a list of all changes between
your version of
Bugzilla and the current version of Bugzilla on the above pages.</p>
<h2 id="staying-up-to-date-with-bugzilla">Staying up-to-date with
Bugzilla</h2>
<p>You can see the latest updates from the Bugzilla Project and
the status of Bugzilla development on the <a
href="https://www.bugzilla.org/blog/2024/09/03/release-of-bugzilla-5.2-5.0.4.1-and-4.4.14/https//www.bugzilla.org/news">News
page</a> of the Bugzilla website.</p>
<p>You can also follow us on our social media:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://techhub.social/@bugzilla">Mastodon</a></li>
<li><a href="https://x.com/bugzilla">Twitter/X</a></li>
</ul>
<h2 id="live-streaming-content">Live streaming content</h2>
<p>Bugzilla now has a <a href="https://twitch.tv/bugzillaproject">Twitch
channel</a>! We will
be streaming things like work sessions, triage parties, and
tutorial content.
Can’t make the scheduled live streams? You can watch the Video
On Demand
recordings on our <a
href="https://www.youtube.com/@bugzillaproject">YouTube
channel</a>.
Regular streams are at 1pm US Eastern time on Saturdays. We may
also stream at
other random times.</p>
<h2 id="report-bugs">Report Bugs</h2>
<p>If you find a bug in Bugzilla, please <a
href="https://www.bugzilla.org/contributing/reporting_bugs.html">report
it</a>!</p>
<h2 id="support">Support</h2>
<p>You can ask questions for free on the mailing lists (or in
online chat rooms)
about Bugzilla, or you can hire a paid consultant to help you
out:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.bugzilla.org/support/">Free Support</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.bugzilla.org/support/consulting.html">Paid
Support</a></li>
</ul>
<h2 id="immediate-help-wanted">Immediate <strong>Help Wanted</strong></h2>
<ol>
<li><strong>Section 508 Compliance Audit</strong>. There are a
number of US government
agencies who use Bugzilla internally (NASA is a publicly
visible example).
New US government projects have to comply with the new
accessibility guidelines
in Section 508 of the Communications Act, so if we want them
to be able to
upgrade we need to comply (at least in our newer versions).
See
<a href="https://section508.gov/"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://section508.gov/</a>.
There is a template for a
compliance statement at
<a href="https://www.section508.gov/sell/vpat/"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.section508.gov/sell/vpat/</a>.
I would love to get a volunteer (or a company who can sponsor
someone?) who
could audit the 5.2 and harmony branches for compliance, file
bugs for things
that are violations, and figure out how much of the VPAT we
can actually
provide at this point. Even if we’re not compliant yet (I
suspect we aren’t) I
would love to be able to provide a statement with the 5.2
release saying how
compliant we are, and listing what’s left to be fixed to make
us compliant. See
also <a
href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1785941">Bug
1785941</a>. Some
work has been done on this (as you can see in the dependent
bugs to that one)
but it still needs help.</li>
</ol>
<h2 id="ongoing-help-wanted"><strong>Ongoing Help Wanted</strong></h2>
<p>You can always find a list of ways to contribute to Bugzilla on
our
<a href="http://bugzilla.org/contributing/">Contributing page</a>.
A few highlights with
additional details:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Donate Money</strong>. Now that we have a legal
entity capable of paying
developers, we need money to pay them with (and also cover our
server hosting
expenses). See our <a href="https://www.bugzilla.org/donate">Donation
page</a> to learn how!</li>
<li><strong>Bug Triage!</strong> As you probably noticed from
the lack of updates around here
in a while, the bug list hasn’t been getting paid much
attention to, either.
Part of getting this project moving again means re-triaging
the existing bug
reports. Some of them are really ancient and may not even
apply to the current
code-base anymore. I’m going to have a blog post coming in the
next week
or two with information on this topic (specifics for how
to help with it), so keep an eye out for that post!</li>
<li><strong>Code!</strong> Once we get the above triage moving,
there will be bugs to fix!
Bugzilla is an Open Source project, and anyone can contribute!
We also have a
relatively small user base compared to some of the big
projects out there, so
the amount of development we’ll be able to fund internally
from our donations
will still be limited. It will probably make better sense for
us to use our
internal developers (once we have money to pay some) to review
patches and
coach external contributors, instead of having them directly
producing code.</li>
<li><strong>Paid Developer Time</strong>. If you are a business
that makes use of Bugzilla,
and has a staff person responsible for maintaining your
Bugzilla
installation, and that person is willing, please consider
officially sponsoring
that person to help with upstream Bugzilla development for at
least a few hours
per week. Most of our lack of development lately has happened
because the last
few companies that used to do that stopped providing developer
time during the
economic downturn a few years back (either laid off said
person or pulled them
away to work on other things), and they haven’t returned. The
developers we
have currently (until we get money donated as listed above)
are all volunteer,
and most of them are struggling to find time to work on it.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="in-conclusion">In Conclusion</h2>
<p>We have a lot of excitement ahead of us with the first
developer preview of
Bugzilla 6, and the new opportunities in store for
us with a real business entity to support the project now. Come
find us in any
of our chat rooms (links are in the footer of <a
href="https://bugzilla.org/">our
website</a> alongside the social media links) or drop in on
our <a href="https://lists.bugzilla.org/listinfo/developers">developers
mailing list</a>
if you’d like to help.</p>
<h2 id="about-bugzilla">About Bugzilla</h2>
<p>Bugzilla is a “Defect Tracking System” or “Bug-Tracking
System.”
Defect Tracking Systems allow individuals or groups of
developers
to keep track of outstanding bugs in their product effectively.
Most commercial defect-tracking software vendors charge enormous
licensing fees. Despite being “free”, Bugzilla has many features
its expensive counterparts lack. Consequently, Bugzilla has
quickly
become a favorite of thousands of organizations across the
globe, and
is widely regarded as one of the top defect-tracking systems
available.</p>
<p>See <a href="https://www.bugzilla.org/about/"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.bugzilla.org/about/</a>
for more details.</p>
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<div><strong><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Dave Miller</span></strong></div>
<div>Project Leader</div>
<div><strong>Bugzilla Project</strong></div>
<div><a href="https://bugzilla.org/"
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